I thot Oliver Cromwell died
My brain nearly short circuited once looking at the tiktok of an English kid who argued up and down that there was no colonization because Ireland was already part of England...because the king had declared Ireland part of England and declared himself king of Ireland... therefore making him the king of his own land and not a colonizer. He also HONESTLY seemed to believe that during the Revolutionary war the British were JUST trying to free slaves and defend Native American land.
The English and more generally the Brits learn nothing about their empire and colonialism. It is currently not compulsory for primary or secondary school students to be educated on Britain's role in colonisation. European teachers of mine at our Scottish University did a survey asking British students what they knew about colonialism by their government and they knew nothing. Nothing. Colonialism had happened and it was bad - when, where, how and to what extent none of them knew. The Empire was something positive or neutral in their mind but they had no idea what it meant effectively. We French and German people knew much more than they did, and that's something given colonialism is very little covered in Germany and still not extensively covered in France (though it's the subject of multiple History and Geography lessons from middle school to high-school and the main subject of one module in philosophy). I was in an international British section in my French high-school, and my French British History and Geography teacher had to constantly correct and question the official lesson plans he was supposed to follow to give us the bigger picture. So I wasn't even shocked when my classmates discovered in Irish literature class that Ireland was Britain's first colony, and that the bloody methods of plantations were tested there before being exported to America.
Discovering how bad the History and Geography curriculums are in Britain really opened my eyes on many consequences of this lack of awareness of the nation(s)' past, directly reflected in today's politics. And this comes from someone educated in the second former colonial Empire in the world - which means it's also in my government's interest not to mention the subject too much.
I know people make fun of the American education system but damn.
